Monday, February 07, 2011

I thought I'd clarify my comment the other day about the (more or less) 1200 Calories I'm currently consuming daily.

It wasn't a deliberate choice to reduce my food intake to that level. I didn't pick 1200 and think: That's the magic number that will see me lose X kg per week. I simply reduced my meal portions to what I would normally eat when aiming for weight loss, cut out the empty calories from alcohol and snacks that I don't really need and tuned in to my hunger signals to determine how many meals I needed.

I logged my meals as I went and was a bit surprised to find at the end of each day that I was sitting at around 1200 Cals. I didn't then think: Hurrah! I have Calories to spare. What else can I eat? Instead I thought about whether I felt satisfied and discovered that I did. I've had no urge to eat anything extra (and only once felt like a drink).

On the no-alcohol decision: I'm usually happy to have a glass of wine once or twice a week, but after a long holiday where I indulged a little lot too much, I figured I'd benefit from drying out a bit during February. ;)

I'll continue to pay attention to my hunger signals and I expect I'll be increasing my food once my training gets back to something like normal intensity and timespan.

On that note, today I'll be facing up to Coach Troy - but I won't be trying Bending Crank Arms, or Enter the Red Zone or some other leg-smashing workout. I'll be starting off with some Aerobase Builder and will see how that goes before I attempt anything more strenuous.